BOOK REVIEWS
| Published date | 01 June 1996 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1996.tb00655.x |
| Date | 01 June 1996 |
British Journal
of
Industrial Relations
342 June 1996 0007-1080 pp. 315-328
BOOK
REVIEWS
SOGAT
A
History
of
the Society
of
Graphical and Allied Trades
by John Gennard
and Peter Bain. Routledge, London, 1995,
xxiii
+
670 pp.,
€75.
‘In a minute-by-minute industry, when they’ve got you by the balls, you’ve got to
listen..
.
Well, they haven’t got
us
by the balls any more.’
So
spoke Kelvin
MacKenzie, then editor of the
Sun,
the night before the 1986 runaway from Fleet
Street to Wapping. (See Peter Chippindale and
Chris
Horrie,
Stick
It
Up Your
Punter,
Mandarin, 1992.) MacKenzie was referring to the print unions, cajoling the
journalists to decamp to Tower Hamlets. The News International dispute
-
about
power, not new technology, and unambiguously settled on Mr Murdoch’s terms
-
was the catalyst in the merger between the craft-based National Graphical
Association (NGA) and the industriallgeneral Society of Graphical and Allied
Trades (SOGAT). The new Graphic, Paper and Media Union, formed in 1991, has
some 300,000 members. Only time will tell whether the GPMU
will
evolve into one
union for all media employees.
Just before the merger, Professor Gennard published the history of one party, the
NGA. Now, together with Peter Bain, he has completed the task with this
magisterial history of SOGAT, the larger party at the time of the merger with
170,000 members. The focus is the period 1955-91, and four areas are covered
inter-union relations, constitutional and financial structure, relations with the wider
trade union and labour movement and relations with employers.
We are frequently reminded that SOGAT (and the NGA) were not primarily
unions for employees of national and local newspapers. SOGAT had more members
in paper making and paper conversion and in general printing than in newspapers.
This
is important, because product market developments, the skill
mix,
techno-
logical innovation and employers’ objectives and vision varied greatly among the
constituent industries where SOGAT members are represented.
SOGAT was formed, at the second attempt in 1982, from the merger of the
National Society of Operative Printers and Assistants (NATSOPA) and the National
Union of Printing, Bookbinding and Paperworkers. The initial merger was largely
defensive. The two unions were worried about the intentions of the craft NGA and
were fearful of redundancies. But, in principle, the merger provided scope for
achieving other ends. For example, it would eliminate disputes between the two
unions arising because people performing identical warehousing or machine room
tasks were in separate unions depending on the town. It permitted the two unions to
challenge (albeit unsuccessfully) the apprenticeship system, whereby the NGA
blocked attempts to
fdl
vacancies in craft occupations by upgrading adult assistants.
It also provided a stepping stone to the vision of the future held by officials of both
merger parties
-
one media union.
Q
Blackwell Publishers Ltd/London School
of
Economics
19%.
Published by Blackwell Publishers Ltd,
108
Cowley Road,
Oxford,
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lJF,
and
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Main Street, Cambridge, MA
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